Predictions 2010 - 2019 (Lesson Plan)

Probably one of the easiest, getting-back-in-the-groove, sans materials, dogmesque lesson I can think of:

Step 1

Write 2009 on the board

• Ask students to quickly jot down a list of the 5 most important things that happened to them (and/or their companies or families) over the course of the year.

• Put them in pairs and ask them compare and share.
  

Add 2000 - 2009

• Join some of the pairs of students to create mini-groups of 3 - 5 students. Without asking them to create lists, encourage them to share the significant events in their own lives and the world around us in the previous decade.
  

Step 2

Draw a table on the board and fill it in with some of the key words below - areas where one might expect to see change within the next decade - and elicit others from your learners:

- politics
- economy
- war
- sports
- weather-environment
- technology
- social media
- entertainment
- education
- can you suggest any other areas of change for your own specific students' interests?

Hand students large sheets of paper and in micro groups ask them to brainstorm, collaborate and make predictions. (Adding dates of when they expect these changes to occur).

Encourage them to agree and disagree, discussing fears and solutions, feelings and hypothesis. You can choose on whether or not to focus in on the use of the various futures which will naturally emerge as you circulate.

Change the members of groups after every 15 minutes or so in order to keep content, ideas and conversations dynamic. Their sheets should be completely filled.

Step 3

Post-task: get your students to take specific areas of responsibility and write these up in notebooks or blogs - they can also create posters, glogsters or simply powerpoint them.

Best,
Karenne

p.s. if you've got a "don't like to talk to each other group" - help kick off these conversations using a prediction based news article, Abba song, slideshare, video or last years' conversation prompts / change lesson from Eric Roth's Compelling Conversations.

Or tell them your own.

What is one thing you predict happening 2010-2019?

(I reckon they'll be a lot more edu- blogs and many more university lecturers online - but you'll have to pay for monthly access (some sort of i-tunes-like platform) and... I think there will be a whole lot less printed textbooks: 2016 on and hmmm... learning a 3rd language will suddenly become a fashionable trend - it somehow gets easier: brain implants probably :-).